Our Advisory Board

Meet the 2014 – 2015 Team

Timothy McCarthy, Lecturer on History, Literature, and Public Policy | Harvard University

Timothy Patrick McCarthy, is Lecturer on History and Literature and on Public Policy at Harvard University, where he directs the Sexuality, Gender, and Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also Vice President of College Alumni Affairs for the Harvard Alumni Association.

A historian of politics and social movements, McCarthy graduated with honors in History and Literature from Harvard College, and earned his MA, MPhil, and PhD in History from Columbia University, where he completed his dissertation under the direction of Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Eric Foner and the late Manning Marable. From 1994-1998, he was a research fellow at Columbia’s Institute for Research in African-American Studies, where he was founding managing editor of the journal Race & Reason (now Souls). McCarthy has published four books—The Radical Reader: A Documentary History of the American Radical Tradition(New Press, 2003); Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism (New Press, 2006);Protest Nation: Words That Inspired a Century of American Radicalism (New Press, 2010); The Indispensable Zinn: The Essential Writings of the People’s Historian (New Press, 2012)—and his fifth book, Stonewall’s Children: A Modern Story of Liberation, Loss, and Love, will be published next spring by the New Press. He is also lead editor for the forthcoming three-volume series, Resistance in Words: The Global Literature of Protest (Gale, 2014). A frequent media commentator, McCarthy has appeared on NPR, BBC, Air America, Bloomberg Radio, Radio Free Europe, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now!, and Big Think, and has written for The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Boston Globe, History News Network, Gay and Lesbian Review, In These Times, and The Nation.

Winnie Stachelberg is the Executive Vice President for External Affairs at American Progress. Stachelberg is a member of the American Progress Executive Committee, helping to develop and drive the strategic direction of American Progress’s multi-issue progressive agenda. Since joining American Progress in 2006, she has worked to expand and deepen American Progress’s reach and influence on the Hill, in the administration, and beyond the beltway, as well as managing American Progress’s sophisticated outreach, relationship tracking, and email marketing initiatives.

Stachelberg is an innovator and strategic manager with more than 20 years of experience working in progressive institutions on a variety of policy challenges. While at American Progress, she has helped launch a variety of programs, including the organization’s immigration policy program and several teams she continues to oversee: the LGBT Research and Communications Project, gun-violence prevention work, and the Half in Ten antipoverty campaign.

Prior to joining American Progress, Stachelberg spent 11 years with the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization. As the first vice president of the HRC Foundation, Stachelberg’s early priorities included building a think tank, launching a religion and faith program, and rebuilding the National Coming Out Project. Previously, she was HRC’s political director, initiating and leading the expansion of HRC’s legislative and political strategies. Stachelberg joined HRC in 1994 as senior health policy advocate and helped to establish the organization as a key advocate in health care issues affecting the LGBT community.

Before joining HRC, Stachelberg worked at the Office of Management and Budget, formulating and reviewing health care policies and budgets for the Department of Health and Human Services. A native New Yorker, Stachelberg taught English at George Washington High School after graduating Georgetown University. She earned a master’s degree in public administration from George Washington University.

Jeff Krehely, Chief Foundation Officer | Human Rights Campaign

Jeff Krehely is Vice President and Chief Foundation Officer at the Human Rights Campaign, overseeing the organization’s public outreach and education programs. Prior to joining HRC, Jeff was the Vice President for LGBT Research and Communications at the Center for American Progress, a multi-issue think tank and advocacy organization in Washington, DC. Before CAP, Jeff was the research director of the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that generates research and analysis to help speed equality for LGBT people. Jeff has also served as the research and deputy director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy; special assistant to the president of The Atlantic Philanthropies, Inc., a multibillion-dollar international grantmaking organization; research associate at the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy.

Jeff holds a B.A. in English from King’s College (PA) and a master of public policy from Georgetown University. He has been published by the Brookings Institution Press, the Urban Institute Press, and others. Jeff is co-chair of the advisory board for the Forty to None Project, a program of the True Colors Fund, which seeks to raise awareness about and bring an end to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth experiencing homelessness. He is a member of the board of directors of SMYAL and the Progressive Congress Foundation.

Masen Davis, Executive Director | Transgender Law Center

As Executive Director of Transgender Law Center, Masen Davis brings over two decades of leadership and activism in the movement toward LGBT equality. Since beginning this role in 2007, Masen has expanded Transgender Law Center’s annual operating budget from $385,000 to $1.4M, thereby increasing the richness and expanding the impact of the organization’s multidisciplinary programs.

Under his direction, TLC’s impact litigation secured groundbreaking federal protections in 2012 against employment discrimination for transgender and gender non-conforming people under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. From securing $1M in public funds for transgender employment programs, to sweeping changes to California law under the 2011 Gender Nondiscrimination Act, to unprecedented healthcare access initiatives for transgender people within the state – Masen’s leadership has had a tremendous and positive impact on countless constituents. Masen works tirelessly as a preeminent voice in local, state, and national forums, and is increasingly identified as an international leader in the trans equality movement.

He started his career as a Civil Court Advocate at Chicago’s gay and lesbian center, served as Director of Development for Corporate and Foundation Relations at United Way of Greater Los Angeles, and his activism, research and writings are featured in innumerable textbooks, journals, and documentary films. His community service includes founding and serving as President of FTM Alliance of Los Angeles, Inc. Board Member and Governance Committee Chair for San Francisco’s LGBT Center, and Steering Committee Member of CA LGBT Health & Human Services Network.

He received his B.A. from Northwestern University, M.S.W. from UCLA, and completed the Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Louis Lopez, Associate Special Counsel | U.S. Office of Special Counsel

Louis Lopez is the Associate Special Counsel at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, where he manages the investigation and prosecution of cases under the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Hatch Act, and USERRA. Prior to joining OSC, he served as the Deputy Chief in the Employment Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he supervised the investigation and litigation of employment discrimination and retaliation cases. In both positions, Mr. Lopez worked on cases advocating for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) workers. For example, he drafted briefs and reports asserting that transgender individuals are protected from employment discrimination and harassment under current federal non-discrimination and civil service laws.

Prior to his service at the Justice Department, Mr. Lopez was Counsel to the Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Counsel to the Equal Employment Opportunity Officer at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and served as an Appellate Litigation Attorney in the EEOC’s Office of General Counsel. Mr. Lopez also has worked in private practice at law firms in both Washington, DC, and Chicago; and he served as the Director of Human Resources for Washington Post Digital.

Mr. Lopez is an active speaker and presenter on LGBT issues in the workplace. He currently serves on the Board for the DC Center for the LGBT Community. He previously served a three-year term as a member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, where he developed and implemented programs and webinars on Marriage Equality, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and transgender youth issues.

Since 2005, Mr. Lopez has been an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches advanced courses on labor and employment law. He received a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an LL.M. in Labor and Employment Law from Georgetown University Law Center.

Carl Sciortino, Executive Director | AIDS Action Committee

Carl Sciortino is the Executive Director of AIDS Action Committee. Until early 2014, he was a state representative in the Massachusetts Legislature. There, he was the leading legislative advocate on HIV-related legislation. These include measures to increase funding for HIV-related services; a bill that would require health insurers to cover the costs of treatment of lipodistrophy; and a law that expands HIV testing in Massachusetts. Sciortino, who is living with HIV, has championed social justice issues throughout his career, including the right of same-sex couples to marry; banning discrimination against transgender people; expanding access to health care; and increasing resources for anti-poverty programs.